“Mr. Bassett’s brief apprenticeship in villainy fitted him for, and he was appointed to, a higher office. Mr. Holliday was requested to fill the pulpit made vacant by the military prohibition upon Rev. W. M. Rush, of St. Joseph, and the ladies of the church in which Mr. Rush had been silenced waited on Provost-Marshal Tool and requested permission for Mr. Holliday to fill the silent pulpit. Mr. Tool, who was acting in the interest of the North Methodists, refused to permit Mr. H. to come to St. Joseph to preach the gospel.
“In September, 1862, Mr. Holliday was sent to Platte City, and there remained unmolested until the following June, when soldiers from Kansas took his horse, which he never saw afterward. He borrowed another, which was also stolen and carried off. He thus lost two horses in as many weeks.
“About the middle of July, 1863, Col. Jennison, of Kansas, went to Platte City and burned the town. His men were ordered to shoot Mr. Holliday down at sight. Knowing the character of Jennison’s men, and being apprised of the order by a Union man, Mr. H. made good his escape, leaving his family at Mr. Redman’s. On the evening of his flight his house, containing all that he had in the world, except what the family had on, was given to the flames. His family were thus made destitute and reduced to beggary.
“The next day, at 3 P. M., Mr. Holliday was arrested, by order of a Clinton county militia captain, and taken to Plattsburg. He was there subject to some indignities, until Mr. Cockrell informed Captain Irvine, commander of the post, of the facts, who, being a gentleman and a Mason, ordered the instant release of Mr. Holliday.
“The next day Capt. Irvine was killed in an engagement with the rebels. This very much enraged the militia, and an order was issued again to shoot Mr. H. on sight. He again made his escape by flight and concealment. He remained ten days at the residence of Mr. Powell, of Clinton county, but upon hearing of the order to shoot him, he, with two other ministers, Messrs. Tarwater and Jones, took refuge in the woods, and made their way on foot to Osborn, where Mr. Holliday met his family, and all took the train to Quincy, Ill. They remained in Illinois until the war closed, in 1864, doing the best he could as a minister of the gospel. Returning to Missouri in 1865, he met the Conference at Hannibal, and was appointed to the Shelbyville circuit.
“By this time the New Constitution had been declared the fundamental law of the State, and under it all ministers of the gospel were required to take the iron-clad ‘test oath’ as a qualification for the work of the ministry, or subject themselves to arrest, indictment, fine or imprisonment.
“Actuated by the same motives of conscience that impelled all true ministers of the gospel, he promptly refused to take and subscribe said oath. He was, therefore, arrested and indicted by the grand jury of Shelby county for preaching and teaching as a minister of the gospel without having, under oath, attested his past and present loyalty to the Government of the United States. The said indictment bore the signatures of Wm. M. Boulware, Circuit Attorney, E. S. Holliday, Foreman of Grand Jury, and James Ralph, C. R. Colton and Wm. Colton as witnesses. A copy of the indictment is in Mr. Holliday’s possession, to be handed down to his children as a memento of his sufferings and triumphs in the cause of his Master. It will doubtless make their faith doubly strong in the principles of that holy religion for which he endured so much privation, persecution and personal danger.
“Mr. Holliday was subsequently indicted for the same offense, and held in a bond of $500 for appearance at the November term of the Shelby Court. Mr. M. C. Hawkins, a lawyer of Canton, made an able argument on a motion to quash the indictment, which motion was not sustained, and the case was continued to the ensuing May term, when a nolle pros equi was entered and Mr. Holliday released.
“The facts above narrated I have received from Mr. Holliday’s own lips. He was so reticent of matters concerning himself personally that I can not but regard this as a very meagre epitome of all that he was required to do and to suffer in the performance of the work his Master gave him to do. He evidently is already richly rewarded in the depths of his own consciousness, and justly decided that nothing man may say for him can serve in the smallest degree to increase that reward.
“[Signed] Oregon Richmond.”